The post Google+ Won (Or Why Google Never Needed A Social Network) appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog. But whether or not Google+ continues as a standalone product isn’t the question. We have Google+ to thank for that.

Given that Google+ results are dominating so many SERPs these days, Google is clearly leveraging its power in search to build up Google+. My source is pretty direct about this: “Google has decided that beating Facebook is worth selling their soul.”).

The post Google Now: The Tip of A Very Long Spear appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog. Yesterday my co-author and I traveled down to Google, a journey that for me has become something of a ritual. Some of you might respond – “Google what ?!”

This week’s announcement of Skype’s acquisition of GroupMe, and the recent introduction of Facebook’s Beluga-based Messenger, are part of something much bigger than group text messaging: The landscape of personal online communication is changing.

( image ) Here’s a short overview of Google’s past few months: It’s angered policymakers and pundits with a sweeping change to its privacy settings. Is Google turning into … another walled garden? It was one big hot holy mess, from Google’s point of view.

The post Predictions 2016: Apple, Tesla, Google, Medium, Adtech, Microsoft, IoT, and Business on a Mission appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog. This will be aided by the widespread adoption of deep links and services like Google’s App Streaming.

The post Google Unveils App Streaming: Is This The Platform That Unifies Apps And The Web? Instead, I argued that a new model would emerge , one that combined the open values of a link-powered web with the mobility, sensors, and personalization of apps. It wasn’t easy to make this argument, because for years Apple, Facebook, and even Google were steadily proving me wrong. Then last week, Google announced App Streaming. MORE >>

The hits keep coming from day two of Google I/O : The company announced Google Docs finally works offline, allowing users to edit docs without a connection to the web. Apple iPhones, iPods and iPod touch devices not only got the Chrome browser earlier in the day , but also gain a native Google Drive application , which was improved for all platforms with integrated search features. All Google Drive users gain a nifty new feature: A vastly improved search function. MORE >>

He leads off the book with a discussion of the effect of Google’s “personalization” feature on the ranking of search results. Yeah, Google does some customization that you can’t turn off, but is it really that bad? Is Google really filtering my news? I decided to test this by asking a group of fellow info-entrepreneurs to conduct a search for the word Israel in Google News and send me a screen shot of their search results page. Google web / search MORE >>

( image ) I’ve just been sent an official response from Google to the updated version of my story posted yesterday ( Compete To Death, or Cooperate to Compete? ). In that story, I reported about 2009 negotiations over incorporation of Facebook data into Google search. I’ve now had conversations with a source familiar with Google’s side of the story, and to say the company disagrees with how Facebook characterized the negotiations is to put it mildly. MORE >>

I understand BlackBerry is not a top priority for Google or one of the other major software vendors, but to kill off a decent app that many of us BlackBerry owners used is just wrong. Users may continue to use the app, if installed, however it will not be supported by Google, or available for download starting November 22. Others too are lamenting Google’s move. Uncategorized Android Blackberry Gmail Google smartphones MORE >>